HYPERCALCEMIA

By: Alexis and Chelsae

Hypercalcemia


Hypercalcemia is when there is an over excessive amount of calcium in the blood. It can be cause by to much skeletal calcium release, high intestinal calcium absorption, or low kidney calcium excretion. People with hypercalcemia might not know they have it. Hypercalcemia can go unnoticed or even pass itself off as another disease. Calcium is needed in a day to day diet it helps control many of our body's function. Calcium is responsible for bone formation, the releasing of hormones, contraction of muscles, and helps our brains and nerves function. If your body does not recieve enough calcium, it will steal it from your bones to make sure everything remains in order. An average teenager needs about 1,300 mg (milligrams) of calcium each day. Not enough calcium will result in hypocalcemia and to much will cause hypercalcemia. Daily Dosage of Calcium.


Causes

There are 5 main causes for Hypercalcemia. The most common are hyperparathyroidism and malignancy.
hypercalcemiacause
Abnormal Parathyroid Gland Function:

Hyperparathyroidism:
Is when excessive secretion of the hormone parathyroid (PTH) gets into the blood system. The picture to right shows a picture of the parathyroid glands. This is were hypercalcemia most commonly starts. This gland helps regulate calcium throughout the body, if to much calcium is leaking or exiting the glands the hypercalcemia can occur. If there is too much PTH then calcium levels soar. Hyperparathyroidism is caused by normally a benign tumor or a tumor that isn't harmful. These benign tumors cause the glands to swell and release parathyroid.

Malignancy:
Malignancy would be any tumors that is present or appears in the body.

Vitamin-D Metabolic Disorders:
Hypervitaminosis D, which is when you over dose on vitamin D.

High bone-turnover Rate Disorders:
Some of these disorders are as followed;

  • Hyperthyroidism
    • over active thyroid tissue
    • this results in high levels of hormones
  • Paget's Disease of the Bone
    • chronic disorder which results in misshaped bones
  • To much vitamin A
    • like hypervitaminosis D you have over dose on vitamin A


Kidney Failure:

This can cause Secondary Hyperparathyroidism is the same as Abnormal Parathyroid Gland Function but this is only found is patients with renal failure.

Signs and Symptoms

Symptoms of Hypercalcemia are present in many places of the body. The most common places are in the abdominal region, in the kidneys, the muscular system and in physical appearance.
hypercalcemia.gif
http://www.specialtylabs.com/books/display.asp?id=1040

Stomach:
Fatigue
Nausea
Vomiting
Anorexia

Kidney:
Stones
Pain
Sudden and Continuous Thirst

Muscular:
Weakness
Twitching

Psychological:
Bone pain
Loss of height
Loss of weight


Treatments and Test

Sometimes surgery may be required, when this is a must they have to go in a remove the irregular parathyroid gland.
There maybe other times where you may have to be watched over time by your health care provider, and may be hospitalized
Some signs of this are your bones beginning to be broken down due to medications you maybe taking, something else to watch out for our fluids found in your veins.

Complications of Hypercalcemia

Hypercalcemcia may also cause the follow other complications or problems.
  • Osteoporosis
  • Kidney Failure
  • Kidney stones
  • Abnormal heart rhythm

Tests for Hypercalcemia
As mentioned before hypercalcemia may go unnoticed of be displayed as another bodily disease they have to test for it using the following.
Blood work
Chest X-ray
Ct Scan aka Cat Scan (Computed Tomography)
MRI Scan (Magnetic resonance imaging)
Mammogram


Work Cited


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypercalcaemia

https://health.google.com/health/ref/Hypercalcemia

http://www.medicinenet.com/parathyroidectomy/article.htm